How does standardized testing affect our society?

Nowadays in our society, the education system is centered around standardized testing, a concept that could be endangering and corrupting our young future leaders. When you are enrolled in a public educational system, you are taught how to pass a test. Everything students do from kindergarten to their senior year in high school is a build up to a standardized test and either allows the board of education to gain or lose money from the government. So why the rush on standardized testing now? While this has been a concept that has been well known for years, it is now being publically broadcasted that other countries are surpassing educational standards and the United States is falling behind in that area. Our government and education systems are basically enslaving kids and teens to hours of homework and studying not to better their education and prepare them for jobs to run a functioning society, but to surpass standards and prove to other countries that we aren’t as dumb as the statistics prove us to be.
While this sounds like a simple competition between superpowers and various countries, it is at the expense of our children. Schools should be offering classes not just to learn skills and pass standardized tests, but to teach our future minds how to thrive in such a demanding society. While classes such as Calculus or World History will be useful to some students who will need it, why do our school systems not offer classes that benefit all students in the long run? Classes that cover how to file taxes or how to prepare for job interviews would cover skills that every student needs whether they wish to be a doctor, a plumber, or an architect. Now, by all means, eliminating classes such as Calculus and World History is not the answer to this question, but instead of teaching to the test, how about we teach to live and become successful. Not only does standardized testing make children and teenagers ill-prepared for the real world, it also takes a toll on the body. Kids are supposed to get an average of 8 to 9 hours of sleep per night, but how is that supposed to be accomplished while balancing a social life, hours of studying, and spending time with their families? This accumulated pressure allows for neurological illnesses to make way into the life of young individuals and discourage them from further education. Isn’t it time to make a change to help the people who will eventually be the caregivers and future politicians of this nation?